The Magic of the Unexpected
by rebaobsessions
Summary: Willow has been searching high and low for someone local who can teach her light magic. After hearing about the Charmed Ones, she did the logical thing. She acquired their address and showed up on the Halliwell Manor's front porch. Something she didn't plan for? The witches being in the middle of a demon attack. One-shot.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:**

 **It's been two years since Sunnydale went BOOM!**

 **As for the Halliwells, Chris is born and Leo's a whitelighter. You figure out the specifics.**

 **Let me know what you think!**

* * *

The house towered before the road, a giant welcoming home teetering on the edge of the hill. Willow was tempted to run away before she even drove into San Francisco. Now, she was ready to evaporate on the spot. It was one thing to be a witch. It was another thing altogether to digitally track down the home address of the rumored "Charmed Ones." _They'll probably_ _vaporize me before I walk through the door_ , she thought against her will.

"Happy thoughts, happy thoughts," she murmured to herself as she climbed the front steps. Why, oh why, didn't she let Buffy or Xander come with her? Or even Giles?

Ever since Willow went white-haired goddess-y and Sunnydale was blown to hell two-ish years ago, she had searched high and low for a local coven. The one in England helped her immensely after Tara died and she went black-eyed evil for revenge. She wasn't evil after the battle against the First, but she was just as lost. Who could help her more than the _Charmed Ones_?

The young woman hesitantly climbed the hill, step by terrifying stone step. As she stood before the ancient-looking stained-glass door, a spiteful voice slipped into her mind. _What if this isn't even their house, Willow? Or what if they aren't_ real _witches? What then? How does an insane asylum sound, Will?_

 _No. You can do this. Deep breath in, deep breath out. You came this far—you've_ got _to at least try!_ Swallowing back her fear, she raised a heavy hand and rang the doorbell.

Willow expected all manner of things. She expected an ordinary person to answer the door. She expected to hear an incantation from behind the door and dissolve. Hell—she expected anything except what actually happened.

The elegant door flew open, someone screamed "DUCK!" from within, and Willow got a glimpse of a figure flying towards her. The next thing she knew, she was on the ground, staring at the fireball flying over her head and into the house.

Craning her neck, she saw a dark-clad man with a malicious smile standing a few feet behind her. He reminded Willow of Angelus. She didn't get to register what _exactly_ he was doing before her tackler hoisted her up and dragged her inside the house, yelling something along the lines of "Quick! Get inside!"

She didn't get a chance to absorb her surroundings as she was ushered through the threshold. In fact, Willow barely had any idea what was going on. However, she was sure of one thing; she had the right house.

The woman who had tackled her quickly regrouped with another, "Where's Piper?"

"She's still working on the potion," the second woman, who had a pixie cut, glanced nervously at the stairs.

"But you got the spell, right?" Willow's savior glanced nervously back her. Willow was certain she had her mouth open and looked like a fish.

"Should do the trick!" the short-haired woman beamed and waved around a strip of paper.

"Piper!" the first woman shouted up the stairs.

"Paige! Did you get the innocent?" came the reply.

"Yeah," the woman with the spell shouted back, "but we could really use that potion!"

As if to prove her point, the man from outside appeared in the middle of the entry way. Willow yelped in surprise, against her better judgment. But, to be fair, he did just _appear_ in a heat-wave-like shimmer of air. So far as Willow knew, _nothing_ did that.

"Phoebe," Willow's savior, Paige, muttered, "I'm getting Piper; you protect the innocent."

Phoebe swiftly inserted herself between Willow and the man as Paige disappeared in a shimmer of blue light. Phoebe glanced back at her, "Just stay down, ok? Everything is going to be fine."

The man cackled, like an honest-to-goodness crone-like cackle. It was _painful_ to hear. "Nothing is going to be fine, _witch_. Not for you or your sisters!"

"Oh really? Like we've never heard that before. You may be an upper level demon, but we've faced far worse!"

The demon opened his mouth to respond, but before he did, Paige reappeared in her blue lights, along with a third woman—Piper, Willow assumed. Piper was holding a small vial with bright red liquid in it. As soon as she solidified, she shouted "NOW!" and threw the potion into the man's chest. In an instant, Phoebe had inserted herself between her sisters, the paper held so they could all see it.

As one, the women spoke, "Demon standing in our sight; May you melt into the light. We sisters three call to thee: Your final death we now decree!"

Willow stared in awe as the man erupted in flames and vanished with a scream. The three women—no, they were definitely _sisters_ —breathed a sigh of relief and clapped each other on the back. For a moment, Willow stood in her little corner, completely forgotten. _Should I say something?_

Before Willow could open her mouth and embarrass herself, a new voice called from the other end of the house, "Piper? Did you get him yet?"

"Yes, Leo, in here!"

A man came around the corner, a child on each hip, a smile on his face—until he looked up, eyes immediately landing on Willow, "Uh—"

Piper glanced over her shoulder. "Innocent!" she hissed.

Paige whirled around, "Ah, um, so—this must be frightening for you." She elbowed Phoebe.

"Ah—Yes! So, if you'd just like to forget all about it—"

Piper narrowed her eyes, "Wait…. Why aren't you freaking out?"

Realization dawned on the other two sisters and their eyes widened.

"Who are you?" Phoebe asked.

At the same time, Paige asked, "What are you?"

"Well, I'm Willow Rosenberg and I'm a witch," Willow said slowly, "And as for freaking out, I've never seen anything like _that_ , but—" Willow paused, then raced off at ten miles per hour, "My best friend is the Slayer, well now she's one of a whole bunch of Slayers because of this spell I did, but I spend a lot of time chasing down vampires and fighting incorporeal evils from the dawn of time, and mayors that turn into giant snake-monsters, and well, I thought I'd seen it all, but you guys must have a whole other world to fight, cause I haven't seen anything like that, and I knew you were witches, but I—"

"Wait," Paige stopped her, "You knew we were witches?"

Willow felt herself turn crimson, but nodded. "I'm kinda a tech genius too; I may have illegally tracked down your address. You're the Charmed Ones… the Halliwell sisters."

"Uh-huh, right," Piper interrupted, "But let's take two steps back. _Slayer_?"

To Willow's surprise, Leo answered for her, "They're a line of girls that magically inherit super-strength and such to fight demons—mostly vampires. It was a one-at-a-time thing until about two years ago." He turned his attention to Willow, "That was you?"

Willow gave a sheepish smile, "Yeah, but to be fair, we kinda blew up Sunnydale at the same time."

Phoebe frowned, "I read about that. Freak explosion."

Willow let out a breathy laugh, "Yeah, if by freak you mean an exploding sun amulet. It took all the Turok-Han vamps, the Hellmouth, a friend, and most of the town with it."

"Hellmouth?" Paige inquired.

Before she could answer, Leo interrupted, "It's weird you don't have a whitelighter."

"Whitelighter?" Willow echoed Paige's tone.

"They're like guardian angels for good witches. You should have been identified when born into a magical family. Leo here is ours'," Phoebe beamed.

"My family isn't magical—at least not as far as I know. My parents would freak."

"How's that possible," Paige turned to Leo.

Leo looked a bit awed—which was hard holding two squirming boys. "You must be an origin witch."

"Origin witch?" Piper echoed as she relieved him of the smaller boy.

"Like Melinda Warren." Willow had no idea who that was, but apparently it made sense to the sisters.

Leo let the older boy down and turned to Willow, "But—the Elders should have sensed you, regardless, and assigned a whitelighter."

"Well, you did say _good_ witches, right?" they looked at her in confusion. Willow took a deep breath and prepared to summarize her entire dark history. "I discovered magic on my own, but I, uh, 'came into my powers' with a dark coven—at the time I didn't know there was a different type of magic. I got…. addicted. And, then I gave up magic completely. And then my girlfriend got killed, and I went like super evil, and my friend Xander saved me by talking about kindergarten, and then Buffy's Watcher Giles took me to a light coven in England and I got better, and then I came back and fought the First Evil with the gang and ended up using some serious light magic to change the rules of the Slayer line, and then everything was ok, but I wanted to learn more light magic but couldn't find any covens, so I decided to track down the Charmed Ones and now I'm here." She paused taking in the faces of the Charmed Ones and their whitelighter. Either they were confused, on overload, impressed, or angry. Maybe all four. Willow swallowed hard, "And it's all really complicated and I hope that made sense, and please don't vaporize me."

Willow expected all sorts of things to happen. She expected death by potion. She expected rejection, and a kick out the door. She even hoped for cautious approval. In no universe, however, did Willow expect the four individuals to burst out laughing.

They weren't chuckling, either. They were laughing _hard_.

"Vaporize you?" Paige gasped out. Phoebe was wiping away tears, and the little boy in Piper's arms was looking at her like she'd lost her mind.

"I think you're going to fit in just fine," Leo smiled at Willow.

Piper clapped her on the shoulder, "We could use an extra hand around here."

"You came to the right place to learn to be both a witch and a force for good," Phoebe agreed.

Paige grinned, "I could ask the Elders if I can take you as my charge!"

Willow was dumbstruck. "Really?" was all she could manage. "Even though I… tried to destroy the world?"

Phoebe made a face, "We've all had a taste of evil, in some way or another."

"Remember that time when Prue was kidnapped and we all got turned evil?" Piper asked.

Leo scowled, "You froze me, then shattered me into a million pieces."

"Or the time that Paige's evil past life literally tried to kill us?" Phoebe added.

Paige grimaced. "That was fun," she said sarcastically.

"The point is," Leo interjected, "You want to learn good magic. That makes you a good witch."

"And we help good witches!" Paige beamed.

Piper held out her free hand, "Welcome to the Halliwell family, Willow."

Phoebe winked, "We're gonna have a lot of fun."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I never intended to continue this one-shot, but I'm currently drafting a new fic to add to the Monsters By Any Other Name series I have on my AO3 account (same name as here: rebaobsessions) with Willow aiding in the search for Christy. It picks up after Billie is already an established part of the group, but I couldn't help wondering how Billie had met them in my altered universe. This bonus chapter I never intended explains just that.**

 **Please come check out the rest of the little universe I'm crafting on AO3. (I don't like posting here because the format is less intuitive, so to those of you who only use fanfiction, I'm sorry...).**

 **I hope you enjoy.**

* * *

A wild year later found Willow and her honorary family enjoying a remarkable ordinary afternoon. After the whirlwind that had been the Avatars, and then Zankou, the reprieve was more than welcome. Willow was curled up with a book in her favorite armchair, watching Leo roll plastic cars around with Wyatt and Phoebe play peak-a-boo with Chris. Piper was in the kitchen, producing heavenly smells, and Paige and Victor were due any time now. In an hour or so, it was bound to be a near-perfect family night.

However… the scene was somewhat ruined by Phoebe trying to get Leo and Willow to weigh in on her most recent column problem, even as she made funny faces at her youngest nephew.

"Come on, guys," she urged, simultaneously making a faux surprised face at Chris, "Just a _little_ help?"

Willow shook her head in amusement, "I don't know why you think _I'm_ qualified to give any sort of advice."

Leo gave Willow a semi-desperate look, "Right. And I'm, uh…"

"Leo, please?" Phoebe scrunched her nose up at her captive audience of one; Chris let out a delighted gurgle. "You were like an _actual_ guardian angel."

"Yeah, but I was _your_ guardian, Phoebe," he protested, "And I don't really deal with everyday problems."

Willow let out an amused snort, "Says the headmaster of a school full of unruly children and teenagers."

Phoebe let out a delighted chuckle and Leo turned his best glare on the young redheaded witch. Before the discussion could continue, however, there was a tell-tale tinkle and a shower of bluish-white lights as Paige materialized just in front of Willow.

"Hey, Paige," Phoebe smiled at her sister, a carefully innocent look plastered on her face, "Do you—"

"I have a new charge," Paige interrupted.

Everyone perked up at that. Willow even put aside her book and leaned towards her whitelighter. "Really?" she asked eagerly.

Paige turned around, obviously surprised to find Willow behind her, and made a wry face, "Yeah, but I keep _missing_ her. She, like, calls for help, but when I show up she's not _there_."

Leo frowned, "How do you know your charge is a she?"

"Well… I just saw a glimpse of her," Paige admitted, "I followed her call to a movie theater, but all I found was a demon, and he knocked me super hard against the wall. When I got back up, the demon had already left and she was halfway out the door."

Phoebe's eyes were wide, "What does she look like?"

"Black hair," Paige gestured vaguely at her own face, "sunglasses, skimpy black outfit." She turned to Leo, "Why does she keep _calling me_ and then _not being there_?"

"She probably doesn't even realize she's calling you," Leo suggested, "With new charges, a lot of the time it's just subliminal."

"Do you think she's new-new?" Willow asked, "Or more me-new?" After a year of living with the younger witch and her babbling way of describing things, none of the other adults batted an eyelash.

Paige shrugged, "I don't know for sure, but it seemed like she was flying blind. And I think I heard her say something about her first demon when I was busy trying to get off the floor, so it's not like she lived on a Hellmouth or something."

"Well," Phoebe declared, standing up and swooping Chris up with her, "There's only one thing to do then. I'll go get the map and scrying crystal."

Willow stood up as well and reached for Chris, "I'll go tell Piper we're going to have another guest for dinner."

Phoebe smiled and handed the little boy off to the other witch before turning and starting up the stairs. Leo chuckled at them and turned his attention back to Wyatt, pushing a fire truck towards the bulldozer he had just flipped over. "I'll just stay here with Wyatt."

Willow chuckled at the ex-whitelighter, shifted Chris onto her hip, and set off towards the kitchen. Behind her, Paige squawked indignantly, "What should _I_ do then?" but Leo just laughed unsympathetically at her.

"Hey, Piper," Willow called as she reached to kitchen doorway. The scent this close made the ex-Scooby's mouth water; it smelled like rich red marinara pasta sauce and balsamic salad dressing and toasting bread. The scene was just as chaotic as the smell; Piper was dancing around a labyrinth of pots and pans and cutting boards and bowls, looking entirely at peace.

"Yeah, Will?" she asked distractedly, reaching into a cabinet with one hand and stirring the contents of a bowl with the other.

"Paige has a new charge; Phoebe and I are going to help her find her, so we might have a guest for dinner." Willow glanced down at her current passenger as he made grabby hands in front of her face.

Piper froze and turned to give Willow a shocked look, "Is it a witch?"

"Yeah," Willow nodded and shifted Chris a bit so he could reach her short red hair. He made a pleased gurgle and buried a hand in it. "From what Paige could see, she's hunting demons blind."

"We certainly can't have that," Piper agreed passionately, already turning back to her current project. "Let me know if you need my help."

"Sure," Willow smiled at the eldest Halliwell's back before turning and heading back to the living room.

She arrived just in time to hear Paige exclaim excitedly, "Got her!"

Willow blinked as Paige stood up from where she had been kneeling beside the coffee-table-turned-scrying-station and disappeared. "How did I miss all the action?" She complained to Phoebe, who was still knelt by the map. "I wasn't even gone for a _minute_!"

The advice columnist shrugged and gave her a 'what can you do?' look. Willow shook her head, accidentally dislodging Chris's hand, and plopped down on the couch.

Phoebe made a face at Chris; Chris giggled. Willow smiled. A few feet away, Leo performed a horrible imitation of a fire truck siren; Wyatt laughed and flapped a hand at his father. Willow smiled wider.

She had never expected this, but it was certainly wonderful.

A few minutes later, Willow was curled back up in her chair, book in hand. Chris was now firmly glued to his grandfather's side—Victor had _just_ arrived—and Wyatt had lost interest in his cars and was now engrossed in a coloring book. Phoebe was sprawled inelegantly across the floor (still complaining about her column) and Leo had disappeared into the kitchen.

Once again, the trademark tinkle preceded a glimmer of lights before Paige materialized with a young blond woman… about two inches from Phoebe's head. Said witch let out a startle yelp and scrambled to the side and up onto her feet. Disoriented and equally surprised, the unknown girl let out a matching yelp and stumbled backwards. Reacting on pure instinct, Willow reached out with her telekinesis and steadied her before she could fall on Wyatt. (Wyatt's force field flickered into existence briefly, but he just kept scribbling away. _Silly boy_.)

"Paige!" Phoebe glared at her sister, "What was that? You nearly _crushed_ me!"

"Sorry," Paige offered, grimacing slightly.

"Don't be sorry," Willow jumped in, slowly getting to her feet, "She was asking for it."

"I was not!" Phoebe redirected her glare. The twinkle in her eye rather ruined the angry look.

Willow huffed at the psychic, "You've been complaining _non-stop_ since Paige left." Phoebe wrinkled her nose but didn't respond. Willow gave a small smirk of victory before turning her attention to the newcomer.

The blond haired witch had watched the entire exchange, whipping her head back and forth like she was watching a tennis match, and looked rather confused, so Willow stepped towards her and extended a hand. "Hello!" she greeted brightly, "I'm Willow Rosenberg and you're in the Halliwell manor." The woman hesitantly accepted the handshake, so she barreled on, "You've already met Paige, but she, Mrs. Grumpy-pants (who's also known as Phoebe) and Piper (who's in the kitchen), are the Charmed Ones. The little tikes, Chris and Wyatt, belong to Piper and Leo (who's also in the kitchen), and this splendid gentleman is Victor, the sisters' father."

The woman blinked blankly at Willow, then tilted her head a bit. "All I got from that is that you're Willow. Uh… I'm Billie."

Phoebe chuckled at that and took over the introductions, walking the young witch through the information at a much more sedate pace. Poor Billie still looked overwhelmed, but at least she seemed to be absorbing the information.

"Dinner!" Piper yelled from the general direction of the kitchen, effectively halting any continued discussion.

Chris let out an excited yell and scrambled off his grandpa's lap and hurled himself towards said food. The others rapidly followed, but Willow hung back with the newest addition.

Billie looked towards Willow with a lost expression, "Is this normal? When Paige explained everything, I kinda expected we'd go right after the demon I'd been hunting…"

"No," Willow denied cheerfully, "This isn't normal at all. There's generally more danger and chaos. I recommend enjoying the time off." She leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner, and whispered, "Eat as much of Piper's food as you can."

Billie gave her a doubtful look, "You _are_ witches though, right?"

"Oh yes," Willow assured her, "We're as witch-y as they come. Buuut," she continued wisely, "Even witches have to eat."

A reluctant smile broke across Billie's face. Internally, Willow performed a fist pump. _Success!_

"Come on," Willow urged, taking her new companion by the arm, "Let's get some food. I'm sure we'll finish welcoming you into the family later. We might even do some witch-y stuff too!"

Billie shook her head and allowed Willow to drag her towards the heavenly scents. The redhead chose to take that as a positive sign as well. _Baby steps_ , she thought to herself, _and she'll be used to us in no time._ After all… _Willow_ had gotten used to it.

Somehow, and incredibly, Willow had found a second home in the Halliwells. It had been an entire _year_ (though sometimes it felt like no time at all), but the veteran witch _still_ marveled at the lovely world she'd stumbled into, especially in quiet moments like these.

She had never expected this, but it was frankly… well. Magical.

* * *

 **A/N: Aaaand there you go!**


End file.
